On Protecting Farmers’ New Varieties: New Approaches to Rights on Collective Innovations in Plant Genetic Resources

Current farmers’ breeding goes beyond the gradual selection in landraces, and
includes development and maintenance of major new farmers’ varieties that are rather
uniform, in particular in South-East Asia. Modern varieties developed in the formal
sector have simply replaced landraces as the source of diversity, but have not abolished
farmers’ breeding practices. Interpretations of the new international agreements on plant
genetic resources should protect the development of modern farmers’ varieties. However,
ensuring recognition of collective innovation, allowing access to relevant germplasm
sources for farmers’ breeding activities, keeping materials freely available, and arranging
for effective benefit sharing, all form major challenges. This paper proposes a new
protective measure: namely “origin recognition rights.”